


with that, I slipped.

by sventheolsen



Category: Jessica Jones (TV), Marvel
Genre: Angst, BDSM, Dom/sub, F/F, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-09
Updated: 2018-01-08
Packaged: 2019-03-02 14:16:16
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,593
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13319898
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sventheolsen/pseuds/sventheolsen
Summary: “It's—fucking impossible, and yet happening, and Jessica is almost transfixed by the pull of Trish’s teeth against her lower lip, the way her jaw relaxes and body melds against her own.”Jessica and Trish attempt, and fail to ignore the growing pains of their new relationship.





	with that, I slipped.

_ NOT ALL LOVE IS GENTLE. SOMETIMES IT’S GRITTY AND DIRTY AND POSSESSIVE, SOMETIMES IT’S NOT SUPPOSED TO BE CAREFUL OR SOFT AT ALL. SOMETIMES IT FEELS LIKE TEETH. _

  * Azra T.



 

  1. **_day zero_**



 

She’s stuck scrubbing her toilet at midnight when her phone rings. She’s pushing forty hours of insomnia, again, so she picked up Malcolm’s offhand suggestion that she make her place ‘look less like a stash house’. Her fingers are red and scrubbed when she picks up. “Jones.” She distractedly mutters into the phone. 

 

“What are you doing?” Trish asks. She ceases mopping and straightens up. 

 

Jessica perks at the edge in her voice. She inhales the city as she steps outside, smelling like maple and gutter. “Cleaning my bathroom.” She glances at the street below. “Getting my shit together.” She smirks at her pun.  

 

“Wow- did someone die in there?” She’s only half-joking, but Jessica scoffs anyway. “Not this time,” she says, enjoying the fact that she momentarily blindsided Trish.  “I’ll  see it to believe it. I need to come over.” 

 

Her hackles raise at that, and Jess ventures - “Is everything okay?’

 

A pause. “No, no - nothing serious.” Trish rushes, but uncertainty colours her voice as she coughs. Jessica frowns, hearing twinges of classical music in the background. “Just… expect me in ten.” And she hangs up. 

 

She is left frowning and staring at her phone for several beats. She should have installed the GPS tracker on Trish’s phone. Other people’s overcontrolling was her own standards of safety. She quickly types out texts to Malcolm to be on guard, and to Trish as she dunks the sloshy soap water down the sink.  

 

**_yikes. what happened?_ **

 

The lack of response from the woman makes her bite her lip. 

 

She opens up the door when the doorbell rings, although a part of her thinks - why bother _ ;   _ but sucked in a large breath when she sees her. Trish has always been the more beautiful one out of the two of them, but Jessica tended to forget how  _ elegant  _ she could be if she tried.  She was not used to seeing Trish in filmy, floor-length silk, with intricate earrings. 

 

Trish jerked her head back as it swung open, almost as if she hadn't really expected Jessica to be there. “ Are you okay?” she demands, stepping aside to let her in. Trish passes her swiftly, and swivels around, twisting her fingers and refusing to look her in the eye. 

 

Jessica eyed her critically for a few moments. No physical damage. “Did someone fuck you over?” She asks bluntly.  

 

Trish’s hair was pulled high but wisps fell out at the corners as she shook her head. “No, it’s just -” she sighed. She worried her lower lip, staring at a point beyond.  Jess feels the familiar pulse of anxiety rushing, threatening to soak her in. “Trish, what’s going on?” She pitches her voice a bit sharply, and that is what it takes to make Trish snap out of her daze. She blinks at her. “Can we -- talk?” 

 

\---

 

Jessica does not do couches. Couches were an invitation for two things she hated most -- acquaintances who wanted to crash for the ‘night’ and socialising with other people. Her apartment was cleaved into two tight spheres of work and rest, and it suited her just fine. 

 

But she felt the distant urge for one as Trish sat at the edge of her ratty bed, twisting her fingers while Jessica tried not to add up the various prices of jewelry that she casually adorned for public galas. It’s been a full six minutes since Trish had asked to talk, but she doesn’t feel the need to push.  

 

Trish moves forward and cradles her head in her palms. “Jesus,” she exhales. “You think… something like this would be easier.” Jessica doesn’t think, but decides to nudge her slightly with her hip. She gives a slight smile to Trish, who tremulously responds back. “So… I’m in the middle of the annual press ball,” which makes her frown already because Trish doesn’t do lead-ins, “and there’s this guy.” She bites her lip again, staring at Jessica with a microscopic intensity as she continues to speak.

 

“He’s charming, and he- and he’s doing some charity work in South Sudan and Jess - he says, ‘ _ how’s your sister’  _ and I --” her mouth falls open and closes a couple of times, before she decides to give up speech.  

 

God.

 

The docks. Trish’s face held by his hands. His neck; snapped into two. 

 

The silence falls around them, painful and tight. Jessica’s jaw clenches,  because she gave up on sober coping mechanisms long ago, and she feels  _ his  _ presence crawling up their legs and choking their thoughts. “Kilgrave’s dead.” She mutters, because that’s become her mantra- and she clenches onto the edge of the bed. She’s good, though. Now. 

 

She flinches when Trish’s fingers slide over to grasp her own palm, cool and comforting. She relaxes into her touch, and realises dimly they’re both half-leaning into each other, trembling from a chill they can’t name out loud. They lock and sway minutely in that position for a few moments. Jessica has never been a words person - words are cheap when your life is shit - but she’s always equated  _ trust  _ with  _ Trish,  _ the way her spine curves inwards to seek her warmth. 

 

“You’re not my  _ sister _ .” Jessica murmured resentfully to herself. She feels Trish’s quiet chuckle vibrate across her shoulder, and her head tilt to rest against them. She feels the choking in her throat lessen eventually, finds herself loosely holding onto the fingers that are still intertwined with her own. 

 

“I never really considered myself that, either.” Trish shifts till she’s on her side, and only now Jessica realises that they’re sort of lying down, not so much  _ cuddling  _ but holding each other with their limbs. 

 

Blue eyes meet her own. Trish’s face is bathed in the gauzy neon haze of streetlights. She’s smiling, a little.  “No?” Jessica responds, her own lips curling. “What - was I just the Walker charity project?” Trish takes this as an invitation to lean in closer. She feels a distant alarm ringing in the corner of her mind 

 

“If it’s anything-- ” Trish whispers, and her limbs stiffen instinctively. Her breath grazes her own, quiet fragrant exhales. Trish huffs.  “You  _ hate  _ people. That’s really not a Walker thing.” Jessica grins, proud at her own misanthropy. 

 

She pushes her head back to admire Trish fully, secretly reveling at the messy curls that partially cover her face. Jessica isn’t stupid - she’s known since the tender age of sixteen that  _ friends,  _ certainly platonic ones don’t dream of pressing bodies and lips with each other. It does not stop her from looking and appreciating when the rare opportunity lets her. 

 

“You do too.” She mocks, pulling herself closer, watching the way Trish’s face contorts to hide her own affection. She’s circling the boundaries now, pushing herself too close to the abyss. The prospect erupts a muted terror in her chest, but Trish is parting her lips slightly, eyes falling closed. “Jess..” She murmurs. 

 

It’s at the mention of her name the moment becomes claustrophobic; she pulls away from Trish’s lips and eyes and shatters whatever daze that worked both of them under. 

 

She rubs her eyes, and ignores Trish’s gaze still burning upon her. “You need to go, now.” She says, lowly. 

She sees Trish breaking bravado within seconds, shifting awkwardly to leave without attempting to say anything. 

 

It occurs to Jessica belatedly that Trish had left something in her fingers. “You need to take this.” She holds up the token in her fingers, and Trish darts her eyes at her and ventures hesitantly to pick it up.  

 

“I hate you for doing this.” She mutters, and rises.  Perhaps it’s the desperation that feels like pulling teeth, the  _ need  _ to control something in her life that won’t blow up in her face, again, but the moment their fingers touch she fuses their mouths together. 

 

It's—fucking impossible, and yet happening, and Jessica is almost transfixed by the pull of Trish’s teeth against her lower lip, the way her jaw relaxes and body melds against her own. Her fingers skitter across the feverish collarbone, the intricate stitches that lace the back of her dress - Jessica feels her fingers and resolve slipping downwards. 

 

Trish is the one who roughly pushes back, chest heaving. 

 

_ God.  _

 

\---

 

“You look like shit. You need, to like, sleep.” Malcolm repeats, three days later, as he hands her another stack of mail.

 

“ _ Wow.  _ Look at that life-changing suggestion.” She pulls a face at the unimpressed look that Malcolm gives her in response. Just because she had officially registered her Investigative Agency meant she had to be an  _ adult.  _ She feels her head pound the same, but she thinks that another shot of bourbon will just compound the aura pulsing in her cranium. 

 

Malcolm decides to take a seat in front of her. “Trish called me.” She stiffens and ignores him, parsing through the letters. He leans over and rests his elbows on the haunches of his knees, staring at her. She flits her eyes upwards and finds herself nostalgic for the dazed Malcolm who remained oblivious of most parts of her life. 

 

“We’re going through a phase.” Jessica tries not to cringe at how that paints the situation. “She’s- uh, going through things. And stuff.” She mumbles, feeling suddenly off-kilter at the fact that she didn’t know herself what that situation was. Or how she fit into it. 

 

Malcolm stared at her in disbelief. “Did you lose your ability to speak, or something?” The snark tips her back on balance, and she swats an envelope at him. 

 

“You can take to me, you know.” Jessica is ready with another snappy comeback, but her gaze softens at the concern in his face. She looked down again, quelling the words that stuck to the roof of her mouth. “Yep.” She replied curtly, fiddling with her keys. 

 

“Okay…” Malcolm, to her relief, decided to drop it. “I have a case for you, actually - I’m attending this apprenticeship, and this client --” 

 

Jessica cuts him off. “Add it to my list. You know when I’m free anyway .” Andy looked at the clock, her teeth clenching at the time. “Fuck, I gotta go. I’ll text you if we grab takeout tonight, alright?” She threw her grey scarf around her shoulder, her words rushing as she collected her things. 

 

“I’m going to drop some Ambien,” Malcolm called as she fled.

 

\---

 

Trish didn’t really have many friends. 

 

She had colleagues, she had business acquaintances, she had the fans that fawn over her and approach her at parties and fundraisers. But twelve years of gaslighting and emotional abuse led Trish Walker to erect mile-high walls around her psyche and trust. So, really, Trish had rarely any friends. Which lead to the one person who eroded those defenses - or helped to erect them, Trish couldn’t tell. Jessica.

 

Trish rarely wasted time lying to herself. She remembers her lips drying at the sight of the brunette six years ago, gloriously bare and glowing after a hookup. Many of her own fantasies starred Jessica’s super strength locking herself into place, relinquishing control to the one person who taught her to take control of her own life. 

 

But Jessica wasn’t the type of  _ buddy  _ she can call for margaritas and gossip over men. Or move a couch. Or anything that demanded something remotely normal. So she quashed those fantasies as lustful overprojections, and instead focused her efforts to creating some semblance of normalcy for them. 

 

Even if the world shattered around them again, and again, Jessica would hold her in place while she tried to do the same.  Except they broached those boundaries they agreed upon, and Trish was stuck.  

 

\-- 

 

“Hi… You didn’t call.” 

 

Trish barks out a laugh, and the harshness of it jilts them both. She purses her lips, shifting the phone cradled against her face. 

 

“With the  _ fear  _ written across your face?” She murmurs knowingly, feeling a slight pang remembering Jessica’s expression. “You needed some space to think.” 

 

She hears a sharp inhale. “I don’t regret it.” Jessica admits, after long moments of radio silence. 

 

“I don’t believe you.” Trish replies her honestly, hanging her head low. “It’s not personal. It’s just decades of people telling me something and turning around and fleeing.”

 

“ _ Trish.”  _ Now it’s Jess’s turn to sound pained, as if the syllables scratch her throat going up.  

 

“Come to my apartment.” Trish forces out a response, trying her best to keep light. “We’ll talk about it in person.” 

 

\---

 

They don’t end up talking. 

 

Her hands are trembling, but it doesn’t stop her nails from lightly scratching at her scalp, gently tilting her head forward.  She takes it as a sign forward and sinks her mouth onto the strap-on, seeing her hips jackknife sharply forward. She doesn’t stop staring, at her eyes fluttering close and the gentle groan escaping her lips. “Take it deeper,” Jessica instructs, mouth dry. Trish complies and takes the toy deeply into her mouth, not once breaking eye contact. 

 

Jessica is fucking _burning._ She actually gasps, but she finds her legs spreading wider, hips thrusting lightly forward to push the toy deep into her throat. Trish makes a noise, but accommodates. It amazes her, how pliant she’s being, as she pulls herself back and hears her mouth pop open.

 

“You’re not-” Trish is panting heavily, and bit her lip at the predatory gaze that meet her own. “You’re not feeling like you wanna stop, right -” Jessica clasped her jaw and pulled her upwards, cutting off her rambling with a kiss. Jessica withdrew her lips after a few tense, scorching seconds.Her hands trail down to Trish’s inner thighs, edging her fingers slowly and finding a slow rhythm to rock her hips against her own. 

 

"Don't even bother denying that you like this,  _ Patricia. _ " Jessica says.  Trish clenched her teeth and sinks deep on to her strapon without warning, and Jess jolts forward, almost sending them both sprawling to the ground. Something sharp breaks in her gut, and Jess finds herself wrapping her fingers around Trish’s thighs, watching in a daze as Trish pumps her hips up and down.

 

Soon Trish is breathing heavily, blonde locks falling in front of her face, arching her back forwards. A part of her actually  _ growls.  _ “No, you aren’t. Not yet. ” She murmurs heavily, and clamps her hips into a forceful hold midway, and actually yanks it down in the opposite direction. She belied her force with a wet, openmouthed kiss that Trish eagerly returns. 

 

“Take off your shirt.” The angry part of her mouths onto the side of Trish’s jaw. Trish exhales above her and fumbles quickly to remove them. She presses her fingers, white-hot, against her hips even more painfully. “ _ Faster.”  _ Her voice actually vibrates against her skin with the need, and soon the scratchy rustle of fabric leaves her body bare to Jess’s fevering touch. She feels herself inside Trish vaguely, feels the heat pool at the juncture of their thighs. 

 

“You wanted to do this since we were sixteen, didn’t you?” Jessica taunts, reveling in the way Trish seems to pull away and into her at once. She thumbs her nipple, watching with satisfaction the way it hardens around her fingers. 

 

_ “ _ Jess.” Trish whines, arching back. Jessica ignores her. This might be her only chance. 

 

“Did you like that?” She asks rhetorically instead, teasing and pinching the nipples, holding her hips roughly in place when Trish attempts to rock forward. “You’ve wanted me to fuck you,  _ Patsy,  _ behind the bright lights, make you scream away from Mommy-” and she lets her hands loose at that, places a mouth on her breasts, lets Trish’s hips cant forward and create the delicious burn in her own. 

 

“Fuck you.” Trish spits in response, but spreads her thighs wider and sighs when Jessica increases her pace. 

 

Jessica claps her chin again to hold her gaze.  “You're so depraved. And to think you spent all of those years pretending you were waiting for the right  _ guy _ . Look at you. Getting fucked by your  _ sister. _ ” Trish is trying, Jessica can tell, to push her fingers down to her clit, to get her off the edge. Jessica can’t find it in herself to give that particular satisfaction, so she pulls the fingers back, as gently and firmly as she can manage. 

 

She twists their bodies so that Trish is the one whose back hits the sheets, and she throttles into her almost as quickly as they have shifted, and Trish gasps and chokes on her own moans. 

 

“Jess,  _ please.”  _ She tries again, and Jess merely  reaches inside of her thighs with two long, slender fingers that stroke their way down and then hover, not touching anything that matters.

 

If this was going to be the first and last time, Trish better -- “Scream,” she commands, her hips pistoning in and out.  She's never been able to stop her reaction to her name slipping from Trish’s lips, and with a final swipe at Trish’s clit she sees her spiralling over the edge, Jessica following suit soon after. 

 

Jessica waits for Trish’s heart to stop hammering, a steady beat against her shoulders, and then pulls out. She feels Trish’s warmth stick to the side of her thighs, and rolls over to catch her own breath.

 

She feels Trish’s gaze on her profile. “Now what?” Trish whispers. Jessica’s eyes shuttered close, fingers reaching out to trace against what she guesses is her shoulder, soft and pliant. “We go to sleep, Trish.”

 

\---

 

Trish did sleep, but got up the next morning to empty sheets and the faint flutter of the curtains that signal that Jessica left. 

 

She swallowed up the small stab of disappointment that gives her, and takes to work. 

 

\---

 

“Trish? Get out of here.”

 

“... Bye, Malcolm, take care. No, I’m not going to leave - because you’re clearly beyond talking to me.”

 

“I fucking used you, Trish. And you let me do that.”

 

Kilgrave. The comparison springs unbidden but cuts as deeply as the real monster did. Trish swallows. “You think this is about that? God _. _ ”

 

“ _I_ wanted that. When you were inside me and calling me names - Jess, that _made me come._ That doesn’t make you who you are.”

 

“I can’t risk you.”

 

“Jess… we’re not there again _.  _ You aren’t a risk.”

 

“You are.” That shuts her up, and Jessica takes a deep breath.  "You're a risk because... every time you beg me to take you, all I can think is that this is the first time someone has actually understood me, and... I'm not a good person, Trish. The things I want to do to you—"

 

"Bullshit. You're afraid of how much you like controlling me, and that's fine, but it doesn't make you a bad person." Trish crosses her arms, and waits for Jessica to counter. 

 

“I need this level of control, or I can't be with you. Or anyone. It might just be fun and games for you but—"

 

“You’re  _ not  _ him.”

 

\--

 

Her wrists hurt.

 

Not from the handcuffs that Jessica has magically procured, which is fine, but because of the way she couldn’t help struggling against the restraints, Jessica is hanging low behind her - she thinks, because she can’t  _ see  _ beyond the thick black fabric that surrounds her face, but she feels the low heat of Jessica’s smirk spread through her body and pool between her thighs, and she just wants to  _ touch  _ her, and she’s never, ever wanted something more in her life.  God, the need of it makes her dizzy -- 

 

“Jess,  _ please. _ ” She scrapes out, feeling the butterfly touch of Jess’s fingers against the juncture of her thighs,  feeling the bite and harsh suck of her lips against her shoulder in response. Her fingers graze across -- she lets out a breathless chuckle.

 

"Please what?" Jessica asks, long moments later; steady, curved fingers are still stroking her apart, never quite letting her climax, and then—they disappear, and she feels even teeth dig into her thigh.

 

"I need—" she says, but the rest of her sentence just chokes off when she  licks at her clit, swirling around it for a second before pulling away and blowing cold air on it. Trish couldn’t keep from arching her back, and, then, she gave a gulping little moan. 

 

_ “I need you.”  _

 

\--

 

_ “Hi. “ _

 

It’s been two weeks since Trish is gone, and Jessica is waist deep into a case that she’s actually beginning to hate more than usual. Sleeping without thousand thread count sheets makes her crankier, and yesterday she actually apologised to Malcolm for snapping at him bringing dinner. 

 

She’s rubbing her brow and trying to not to feel helpless at  _ another  _ dead end, so decided to put in a dent into her long-distance bill and gives her a call.

 

“ _ Hi.”  _ Jessica replied easily, swinging her legs out onto the fire escape.  “Hating the North yet? Do you get to see yeti footprints or something?”

 

“Jess, you can’t possible believe yetis exist.” Trish sounds breathless, and objects move noisily around her. 

 

She quirks an eyebrow. “Trish, if something like me can exist,” she drawls. “I think yetis don’t sound too bad.” 

 

“Fair enough. Listen, I got you something.” The noises fade away, and she hears the low timbre of Trish’s voice in focus. “Can you punch through titanium? Just asking.”

 

She pauses to think at that. “No, I don’t think so.” 

 

Trish makes a satisfied noise. Her toes curl in response. “I missed you.” Trish murmurs after a few beats. 

 

Jessica’s lips curl. “I’ll see you soon.” 

 

\--

 

She hears the call on a Friday, of all things. 

 

She was wrapping up  _ Trish Talk  _ with an interview of a ‘Ryan-Seacrest type’, internally relieved with the relative mundanity of her workweek. It really said something when all she wanted was to leave for the weekend mentally intact. 

 

“Trish?” A bespectacled intern quietly enquires from the side, and she takes a second to respond. When she glances upwards at her, she sees her nervously beckoning towards her phone. “I, uh, I think you need to take this.”

 

She raises her eyebrows at that, but picks up the call anyways. “Trish Walker speaking,” she answers with her professional tilt, but she feels her jaw clench. 

 

“ _ Hi, this is Mount Sinai Emergency, you’re listed as Ms. Jessica Jones’s emergency contact-” _ Her call disconnects accidentally, her head submerging underwater.

 

She lets the chatter of voices around her flow as she packs her purse quietly and leaves the door without so much of an exit. Thinking right now would be too horrible to begin, so she lets her body move forward propelling towards hailing a taxi and letting herself continue submerging into the thick undercurrent of  _ not thinking.  _   She remembers vaguely this wave overwhelm her in the precinct months earlier, as she was forced to wait for Jessica to try not to die once again.

 

The last thought sobers her pretty quickly, so she staggers out and gives the driver probably too much, and heads straight to the reception desk. “Jessica Jones’ emergency contact,” she grinds out, but she strains a smile to the nurse.

 

Malcolm is at the wings, of course, hunched over. He immediately stands at the sight of her, pulling her into a suffocating hug that she tolerates for three seconds and steps back. “What the hell happened?”

 

His deep-set eyes soften in solidarity. “I-I really don’t know. I think she was following this douchebag around who was known for workplace harrassment and I think she followed him up to his office and she got aggressive and she fell out of the window-” He winces at the expression on her face.

 

“She fell out of a  _ building _ .” Her voice fills with quiet disbelief, and when she bores into the man’s eyes she sees her gaze evenly returned. She’s shaking. It had to be Jessica fucking Jones of her to jump twenty storeys to- what? Catch a perp? Get that one bird’s eye shot of evidence.  

 

She feels herself scoffing, but the quick exhale of breath slowly solidifies into a lump and  _ god,  _ she cannot breathe. She feels her nostrils constricting and throat clamping and she leans reflexively backwards. Without  _ Jessica.  _ Like that she’s underwater.

 

She feels Malcolm’s hands grasping at her shoulders, gently guiding her to a steel-curved seat. “-hey, hey in-out, in-out, that’s right, just like that, Trish, keep breathing.” She takes another twenty seconds to belie the buzzing in her brain that comes from oxygen-starvation, and she takes a ragged breath back inside. 

 

“Okay.” She says, after a long moment. She looks up at Malcolm, who looks torn between pity and empathy. 

 

“Does- does she ever think about us?” She’s looking at him searchingly, but the gaze he gives her is as helpless. 

 

“I think-” He takes a seat next to her now, knees lightly bouncing against hers.  He looks ahead. “I think she thinks about about us, in principle- but I don’t think it really gets to her in the moment.” 

 

She sucks in another breath. Malcolm’s words weren’t surprising, she just hated a little that she had someone who understood it to verbalise it completely. 

 

Six months ago, in the early days after Kilgrave, Trish had let herself fall into the naive conception that Jessica and her were  _ done,  _ now. No more villains to slay, Jessica could just go home with Trish and watch reruns and sleep near each other. But Luke Cage and Matt Murdock appeared and of course Jessica found herself in the jaws of death, with Trish now relegated to the sidelines. Trish  _ hated  _ it. 

 

With Kilgrave, at least Trish had been an actor. She hated that man with every cell she had, but at least she could extinguish that monster with Jessica. Now she’s finding herself strung out on the chance that Jessica can evade mortality yet again. 

 

She sees her lying on the hospital bed, seven grating hours later. She forgets her white-hot anger for a moment, seeing her pale and splayed across the bed, covered in wires. She’s sixteen again and seeing Jessica scramble from her bed, asking  _ “Where’s mom and dad?”.  _ She blinks.  

 

She finds herself reaching over to grasp her knuckles, squeezing and unclenching mindlessly. She ignores the look that the nurse shoots her. She’s been around enough hospitals to know which are real threats from hospital staff. Jessica’s face is purpling and swollen on the side she fell on.  She lets herself sit and stare, for exactly five more minutes, before she dusts her knees and gets up.

 

Malcolm had left a while before she visited Jessica, but thought to leave a steaming coffee cup next to her. She holds it while she makes a few calls to Mt. Sinai management, deflecting any condescension she recieves with a few choicely veiled threats. She lets her angel channel into the conversations, and she momentarily relishes in doing what she does best - twisting elbows for her ends _.  _

 

“She’s my - my family.” She finds herself explaining to the Dean of Medicine at one-am, exhausting seeping into every bone. “She’s my partner.” The words tumble out, and she cannot find it in herself to backtrack or deflect. The Dean falls quiet then, and mumbles that he would try to arrange something.

 

She keeps staring ahead when the call disconnects, and finds it relieving that the thoughts settle in her brain. She has - she has  _ died  _ for Jessica, but they can’t keep trading chances like this. She closes her eyes and waits for exhaustion to claim her. 

  
  



End file.
